Oxfordshire Peace Campaign marks 40th anniversary of the Outer Space Treaty at space communication base near Oxford

Oxfordshire Peace Campaign 

PRESS RELEASE  

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE  Saturday 7th October 2017

Oxfordshire Peace Campaign marks 40th anniversary of the Outer Space Treaty at space communication base near Oxford.

Peace campaigners from Oxford, Abingdon, Faringdon, Kidlington and Didcot were joined by others from Southampton, Bristol and Yorkshire today, to protest the use of USAF Croughton, just off the M40, for mass surveillance and remote attacks.

After a peace march round the base, the protestors were regaled with rousing folk songs by a Faringdon duo and heard speakers from Croughton Watch, The Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, and South West Against Nuclear.

Irene Gill read a moving poem, written by her husband, the Oxford poet David Gill who died earlier this year, which encapsulated the horror of drone warfare.

Paul Mobbs of Croughton Watch outlined the history of USAF Croughton, which was set up during the Cold War in 1950 with a direct line to the Pentagon. It now has direct high-capacity lines to the Pentagon in the USA, GCHQ in Cheltenham, NATO at Stavanger in Norway, Ramstein in Germany, Sigonella in Sicily, and the US AfriComms drone base in Djibouti, as well as to the US embassy in London. Drones circling constantly over North Africa intercept all phone and radio signals and relay them here, enabling targeted “extra-judicial” (i.e. illegal) killing by armed drones. Paul reported that the Joint Human Rights Commission of the House of Lords is aware that what the US is doing in Croughton is illegal under international law, but claim to have no control of it – although officially known as “RAF Croughton”, and on UK territory, in fact it is entirely US controlled.

Dave Webb of  the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, vice-president of the International Peace Bureau and chair of CND, reported that today’s protest was one of 44 actions world-wide. We have got used to satellite-based phone and GPS systems, satellite TV and mapping, and see these technologies as essentially benign. What we don’t realise is that every emergent technology is adopted by the military, and in effect the arms race is moving into space.

Nicky Clark of South West Against Nuclear referred to The Outer Space Treaty of 1967, signed by the U.S. and 90 other countries, which affirms “the peaceful purposes” of outer space and forbids “weapons of mass destruction”  from being deployed in space. Sadly these forward-looking principles were thrown out in the Reagan years, when anti-ballistic missile systems were developed and the “Star Wars” programme was developed to defend anti-ballistic missile (ABM) systems in space. In 2008 President Bush pulled the USA out of the ABM treaty. The USA now has a principle of “Full Spectrum Dominance” including control of space.

On a positive note, the news that the International Campaign Against Nuclear Weapons (ICANW) was yesterday awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, in particular for its work on the new “Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty” agreed at the United Nations this year, was welcomed. Dave Webb said,” The majority of people in the UK do not want nuclear weapons, and the fact that the Leader of the Opposition is a vice-president of CND is a reason for optimism.”